January 24, 2012--Food-Stamp Candidate

Newt Gingrich has taken to calling Barack Obama the "food-stamp president." He claims that Obama "put" more people on food stamps than any other president in history.

Before taking a look at the accuracy of this assertion (hint--be skeptical), let's be clear about what this label is really meant to evoke.

Associating Obama with food stamps is not unlike the political ads from back in the 1960s in which it was claimed that there were "welfare queens" ripping off the system. To be more specific, and to the real point, they were represented to be black women because in the TV ads that applied this slur all the "queens" pulling up to welfare offices in Cadillacs were black.

Newt Gingrich the self-praised historian is well aware of this and by resurrecting the charge and applying it to our first African-American president is his slimy way of not-so-subtly appealing to lingering racist feelings among his party's frustrated and angry political base. He is speaking in familiar code and the message couldn't be clearer.

From data gathered by the Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for the food stamps program, here are the facts:

Gingrich would have been correct to say that the number now on food aid is historically high. The number stood at 46,224,722 persons as of October, the most recent month on record. And it is also true that the number has risen sharply since Obama took office.

But Gingrich goes too far when he says Obama has put more on the rolls than other presidents. U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service month-by-month figures going back to January 2001 show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that.

And under Obama, the increase so far has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama’s time in office than during Bush’s.

It is possible that when the figures for January 2012 are available they will show that the gain under Obama has matched or exceeded the gain under Bush. But not if the short-term trend continues. The number getting food stamps declined by 43,528 in October. And the economy has improved since then.

So Newt is wrong in his assertion that Obama put more Americans on food stamps than any president in history. So much for Newt the historian.

What about the dog-whistle or coded part of his allegation? That the program serves unemployed, free-loading black folks?

The most recent Department of Agriculture report on the general characteristics of the food stamps program’s beneficiaries says that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010:

--47 percent of beneficiaries were children under age 18.

--8 percent were 60 or older.

--41 percent lived in a household with earnings from a job--the so-called “working poor.”

--The average household received a monthly benefit of $287.

--36 percent were white (non-Hispanic), 22 percent were African American (non-Hispanic), and 10 percent were Hispanic.

So much for Newt the racist.